Cliff House the perfect perch for this worldy couple

Mar. 21, 2013

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Looked at that beamed ceiling in the living room. You can't see it but there are fanciful birds, fruit and flower garlands entwined in it. There's also a carved stone fireplace, floor to ceiling windows and original oak wainscoting. / Joe Larese/The Journal News

Carol and Steve Acunto at Hudson Cliff House, the Yonkers home they bought in 2005. It was this staircase that convinced Carol that they should buy the home: 'I could totally see my daughter coming down this staircase for her wedding,' says Carol. Both the Acunto's children were eventually married in the house. / Joe Larese/The Journal News

More about Park Hill

Hudson Cliff House is part of a neighborhood that was built and developed in southwest Yonkers from 1899 through the 1930s on a ledge overlooking the Hudson River. On its hilly streets and lanes are homes of all architectural styles, from Gothic Revivals to Georgian Colonials, many of them impressive enough to be called mansions. Lots of celebrated people moved to Park Hill, among them actress Joan Bennett and her sister Constance, and the drummer Gene Krupa. Father Divine, a Charismatic African-American preacher, maintained a Colonial Revival at 369 Park Hill Ave. The Park Hill Residents’ Association has lots of historical information, maps and more on its website, http://parkhill yonkers.org/gardens

Park Hill House & Garden tour

Hudson Cliff House is not on this year’s Park Hill Residents’ Association and the Yonkers Land Conservancy’s House Tour, but four other period homes and two gardens will be, from 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. May 19. The tour will feature four homes built between 1892 and 1906. The houses are American Four Square; Colonial Revival style; Victorian and Georgian periods. Both of the two gardens on the tour are hidden gems that have been totally restored. Previously neglected and overgrown plots, guests will now be treated to fanciful spaces designed to relate to the homes they adjoin. Tickets may be purchased in advance or on the day of the tour. Ticket prices are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. For advance tickets, mail a check payable to the Yonkers Land Conservancy to P.O. Box 8, Yonkers, NY 10705 by May 11, or order tickets online at www.YonkersLandConservancy.org.

Hudson Cliff House has been the scene of much entertaining in its hundred year history, including dinners hosted by its current owners. Steve Acunto is Vice Consul for the Republic of Italy.

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When it was built in 1914, guests entered Hudson Cliff House in Yonkers’ Park Hill via a circular driveway of crushed stone, then stepped out of their carriages in the porte cochere before being welcomed into the Great Hall through scrolled, forged iron and glass doors.

Once inside, they were ushered across the wide teak floors to a richly paneled reception room to be received by homeowners Capt. Robert and Mrs. Boettger. Capt. Boettger, a banker and industrialist as well as an avid sailor, spared no expense on his home. Rooms of baronial proportions, clad in walnut and sawn oak and lit by chandeliers and custom sconces, were set for formal occasions.

That experience is pretty much the same today. Succeeding owners of Hudson Cliff, thankfully, did little to alter its beauty, so a guest today enters that same Great Hall, with its carved stone and wood fireplace (there are intricate carvings of lizards, squirrels and birds running up its corners) and gleaming beamed ceiling.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the period details, nor the panoramic view of the Hudson River and Palisades beyond, nor the fact that the 12,000-square-foot home was full of unique touches such as working porcelain fireplaces in some of the bathrooms, that sold Carol and Steve Acunto on the home in 2005. “It was the staircase,” Steve says.

“When our Realtor mentioned there was a house for sale in Yonkers that we might be interested in, I wasn’t totally sold,” says Acunto, the founder and president of CINN Group Inc., a private group of companies with holdings in publishing and insurance. (Acunto is also the vice consul for the Republic of Italy, which figures prominently in their decision to buy the place, too, but more on that later).

“I just hung around downstairs while Carol did the tour,” says Steve. “When she came down the staircase she said, ‘This is our house.’ ”

Carol Acunto explains: “It really was the staircase. I could picture my children coming down it for their weddings,” she says. And they did. Both their daughter and son were married in Hudson Cliff House; daughter Claudia glided beautifully down the staircase, past original nautical sconces and under a massive portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

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The couple, who lived in Mount Vernon, also wanted and needed a place big enough to entertain and hold a home office for Steve, who is a major booster of Italy and Italian culture. “We often — almost weekly — entertain leaders from Italy and other colleagues visiting New York,” says Steve. “Diplomats, business and cultural leaders, and delegations — most recently from Pisa, for example — have been to Cliff House.”

His office, formerly the Reception Room (and also apparently a billiards room at one point), is a handsome wood-paneled space. The bankers desk at its center dates from 1740 and the room is at once stately and familiar, with a wood-burning fireplace, old family photos and paintings. Just outside are official U.S. and Italian flags and a guest book.

Keeping things shining

Although it was in pretty good shape when they bought it — members of Capt. Boettger’s family lived here through the 1940s — the Acuntos had some work to do to get the house shining again. “We repainted, recovered, oiled and refined everything in the house,” Steve says.

“It’s a combination of a bill of capacities,” he says.

There is year-round upkeep when you live in a home like Hudson Cliff House, which has six bedrooms, a servants wing with five more bedrooms, 10 fireplaces — 9 are in use — dozens and dozens of leaded glass windows, original wall sconces, chandeliers and wood everywhere. Lots and lots of gorgeous wood. Twice a year, all the wood must be oiled and polished by their house manager, Jose Vicente. “Just about when we finish it all, it’s time to start again,” Steve says.

Still, it’s easy to imagine the entertaining that must have gone on — and still does — at 131 Alta Ave. The Acuntos have hosted dinner for 200 guests on the partially covered brick terrace that runs the width of the house (steps lead down to the garden and another patio). “We have had Metropolitan Opera tenor Marcello Giordani, baritone Lawrence Harris, and many other great singers at our seratemusicale,” says Steve.

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Another fabulous space is the living room, accessed from either the Great Hall or the main hall (beautiful pocket doors close off each room). The most impressive features here are the beautiful beamed plaster ceiling embellished with birds, fruit and flower garlands and the view through full-height windows overlooking the terrace and the Hudson. This room is faced with oak wainscoting and cabinetry; a lovely grand piano takes up one corner.

“This was my grandfather’s piano,” Steve Acunto says, sitting down to play a few chords. “In the distant past, my grandfather had many personalities from the world of opera to his homes in Staten Island and Mount Vernon. We continue the tradition and have had better than 30 salon concerts here, largely featuring Italian artists.”

The piano, restored in 2008, has been played by Stefano Greco, Sandro Russo, Stefano Miceli, Nazzareno Carusi, and Mariangela Vaccatello.

The living room, as most of the home, is filled with art, some by Katonah artist Edward Giobbi. The couple has loaned much of its collection of the 83-year-old’s Futurist works, which depict speed, time and motion, to an exhibit at the Westchester Italian Cultural Center.

The dining room is another marvel, and it’s hard to believe the room has survived after almost 100 years. There is a built-in Jacobean double-tiered sideboard, quarter-sawn oak-paneled walls with a delightful decorative plaster frieze all along the top. At one end is another fireplace flanked by French doors that lead to the sun room. A graceful chandelier caps it all off.

I would be spending all my time in that adjacent sun room. With a working Arts & Crafts-style fireplace, tile floor and vaulted ceiling, the west-facing room provides plenty of heat and light for Carol Acunto to grow grapefruit trees. “We have breakfast and coffee in here every day,” she says.

Unbelievably, the kitchen is also mostly original. Located in the front of the house, the most striking features are the lovely arched leaded glass windows over double porcelain farm sinks. The big windows letin a ton of light that just bounces all over the white subway tile covering the walls and ceilings. Carol Acunto says the schoolhouse light fixtures are original as is the massive range hood, tempered in blackened steel, over a new Garland range.

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“There’s even an exhaust system here, one of the first of its kind,” she explains, pointing to a vent in the tiled ceiling. The kitchen had its own refrigeration room (this was in the days before SubZero), a housekeeper’s office which the couple has refashioned as a playroom for their grandchildren, and a butler’s pantry lined with floor-to-ceiling cabinets, complete with a working dumb waiter. The pantry, by the way, still has its original mahogany countertops.

Cliff House also had one of the first central vacuuming systems, and the original call system for the servants is still visible behind a pantry door.

The second floor has a master suite (which is a little like its own private home) with two walk-in closets, a sitting room, a dressing room with a fireplace and a bathroom with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and another porcelain fireplace! There are two more bedrooms on this floor and a cozy book-lined family room with a door that leads out to a sun porch.

Above that — this home has five levels — are two additional bedrooms, now used as offices, a playroom and the service wing. “The servants had a back stair case that led to the kitchen.” There is a housekeepers suite, four bedrooms and a hall bath.

With all the big wows, there are small details a visitor might miss, such as the oval stained glass insets in most of the windows and doors. “Each represents a place that Capt. Boettger had been on his travels,” explains Carol. Most of the hardware is intact, too, such as door knobs and latches, even the brass fixtures in all the bathrooms.

The couple has updated Hudson Cliff, too. “There was no air conditioning when we moved in,” says Carol. There were no storm windows on the original leaded glass windows either, which meant “it was freezing in here during the winter,” says Carol. Along with adding central air, they installed custom storm windows that protect but don’t detract from the beauty of the original windows.

But they have taken great pains to keep the home intact. All of the bathrooms held original sinks, tubs and hardware and when the brass fixtures on one of the sinks began to leak, there was no ideal replacement. Instead, they devised a system which bypasses the original pipes but brings water to the faucets, which are now mostly decorative.

“The house had three things we had to have,” says Steve. “It had lift, it had progression, it had unpredictability. In fact, we just found a room in the basement we never knew was there.”

“We like it here,” he continues. “We like that Yonkers is a little edgy, but we’ve had nothing but great experiences here. It’s also very close to the city, which is key.”

Especially now that he has been elected chancellor on the 14-member board of the Consular Corps College. The international society of consular officials serving in the U.S is based in Washington, D.C. “We plan to hold a reception here over the summer for a small group of members from about 15 countries,” he says.

The Acuntos, for all the grandeur of their home, are a down-to-earth couple who have taken on the task of maintaining a historic home. “In Italian, it’s un dovere, meaning ‘need to do,’ ” says Steve. “When we bought the house that is the phrase that came to mind; it was something we needed to do.”